Friday, May 23, 2008

Scotty's latest MacSB Podcast is out and I'm the lone American on it. Sharing the mic space with me are Danny Greg and Fraser Speirs, as well as our host, Steve "Scotty" Scott.

We chat about Licensing and Serials and I learn a few British terms, like "wash up," which I thought was Scotty giving us a TMI moment but really he was just going to clean some dishes. Silly American.

Thursday, May 08, 2008

A favorite John Mellencamp song popped on the radio as I left for lunch today after shipping a new release of MoneyWell.

Two American kids growin' up in the heartland.

It followed a ZZ Top song and the two songs sent me back to my days in college. Everything was so possible. All the doors were wide open and we could do anything we wanted. We just had to try.

Jackie gonna be a football star...

None of us had any history of business failure or lost career opportunities. One of my best friends in college was a fellow Computer Science major and we constantly competed for top grades and the highest bonus for handing in our projects early. We also had hacked the college's computer system and had the passwords for all the operators and even created our own teacher account so we could have higher access rights. Fred Dartner was one of the nicest math teachers at Erie Community College—he never failed a single student. We were big fish in a very little pond.

Oh yeah, life goes on... Long after the thrill of livin' is gone...

But then the real world hits and the self-assuredness of academia fades as rejections and failures pile up.

Oh yeah, life goes on... Long after the thrill of livin' is gone. They walk on.

Many people forget that there are no limits to what we can do. We are only limited by our imagination, desire, and faith. That by serving the greater good, we too will be taken care of and will survive.

Jackie sits back, collects his thoughts for the moment. Scratches his head and does his best James Dean.

I was thinking back to a year ago, before MoneyWell 1.0 had shipped, and how I felt at the time. This was after many months of design and coding and I wasn't quite sure how it would be accepted by the marketplace. But there was a glimmer of hope that I was on the right track.

Now with the release of MoneyWell 1.3.3, thousands of customers, and a vivid vision for what is planned in the 2.0 release, I feel rejuvenated. Full of hope. Ready to take on any challenge.

Hold on to sixteen as long as you can... Changes come around real soon make us women and men.

There was no fear when I started my first company in college—I had more guts than brains. There was a ton of fear present when No Thirst Software launched—I had more failures than successes. But now, it's almost two years since I started this blog and caught the bug to go out on my own again and I'm happier than ever.